Following on from today’s earlier post, I have found out that WTPC is supported by WAIK, which allows for a custom image in the same way as we would set one up with Windows 7 Enterprise. I also found out how to get Remote Desktop client to start automatically by replacing the shell. However I will probably have to write a custom shell (a fairly simple task) to provide a way to shut down or log off when Remote Desktop is closed, as otherwise the user is left with a blank screen.
We can also use Group Policy to set up Single Sign On for Remote Desktop. Therefore our thin PC would be domain joined and the user would log onto it using their regular domain username and password. It would then automatically start up Remote Desktop Client and use their credentials to go straight through to the remote server, so the experience would be pretty seamless.
The next question is whether logging off the session can cause them to be logged off Windows, as well, or whether the custom shell would have to detect their logoff and then automatically log off Windows.